


Summer

by earthtoalley



Series: 30 Days of Writing [3]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Angst, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-06-02
Updated: 2013-06-02
Packaged: 2017-12-13 16:52:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,757
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/826589
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/earthtoalley/pseuds/earthtoalley
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"The first summer without Sam was hard. The first summer without Cas was harder."</p><p>Drabble for the 30 Days of Writing meme. Prompt 3: Summer.</p><p>Kind of AU based in which Sam completed the last trial.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Summer

The first summer without Sam was hard.

The first summer without Cas was harder.

Because when he had lost Sam, to their own selfish needs and desires, he had Cas there to help him. He had Cas to lean on, much as he loathed being a burden. Much as he loathed facing his emotions head on and addressing them. Especially when Cas was suffering, too.

Of course Cas was suffering. He was  _human_  where he had once been an angel. He had been forced out of heaven, out of his home, to live a brief and fleeting human life. And he was stuck with Dean for whatever was left of it, which, in Dean’s opinion, was a pretty shitty deal. Heaven, for a man that had slunk back into his alcoholic tendencies? His grace, for a man that had let his baby brother, the one single piece of goodness he had left, sacrifice himself to close the gates of hell?

Because really, what had that achieved? There were no more demons on Earth, and never would be again, but so what? There were still vamps out there that needed slaying. Still ghouls and rugaru and djinn and God knows what else to gank. All they had done was take one kind of monster out of the equation, but really what fucking  _good_  did it do?

Sammy was  _dead_  because of it, and now Cas was gone and Dean was more alone than ever.

Cas had been it – the straw that broke the camel’s back.

And really, Dean should have known it was coming. After everything with Metatron… Cas was human, and therefore he was weak. He was fragile. He wasn’t the near invincible angel Dean was used to. And to begin with, the two of them had had each other on suicide watch, because they’d both lost  _everything_  except each other.

That first summer, they’d rarely strayed from each other’s side. Dean had done his mourning for Sam, and Cas had done his grieving for heaven. They were far from healed, and they were both still hurting, but they were moving on. Slowly, gradually, bit by bit. They spent their days distracting themselves in whatever way possible; hunting, driving, researching, watching the latest edition of Casa Erotica while pissing quarters into the Magic Fingers.

But the nights were different. The nights were when things were at their worst. When the both of them would wake up in the middle of the night, trembling, sweating, shaking. Hearts beating too fast and too hard in their throats. They would wake up screaming as the memories washed over them. The torments. The heartbreak. And to begin with, the only way to stop it was to dull the pain with alcohol. To drink themselves to sleep because it was the only way they could.

But then something had changed. It was as if someone had flicked a switch and all the feelings they had had for each other came flooding back. The tension. The awkward attempts at seduction, by both parties, culminated one sweltering night in July with the two of them tangled in the bed sheets of some seedy motel in whatever State it was they were in this time. Maine, Minnesota, Maryland, somewhere that began with ‘m.’ Dean didn’t know. Dean didn’t care. He had stopped paying attention to where they drove a long time ago – he just picked a road and followed it.

After that night, everything was… easier. They were by no means healed yet, but sleeping was easier when there was another body pressed up against you in the bed, even if the nights were too hot and too sticky to stay together for long without sacrificing the sheets. They had tried that early on, but the two of them had woken up shivering just a few hours later, despite the humid temperature of the room around them. So instead they nestled against each other for as long as possible before the heat got too much, and they parted ways, just a few inches between their bodies, a leg dangling out of the covers on either side of the bed.

And it wasn’t just the nights that got easier, it was the days. The two of them weren’t aimlessly pushing themselves forward anymore. They had some kind of new found purpose; they had each other, and it was enough. Hunting didn’t matter much to Dean anymore. Of course he still cared about saving people, and of course he still cared about ridding the world of just one more monster, but he was tired and he missed Sam. So instead he spent his days living for Cas, and the angel did the same in return.

They had spent the rest of their summer by the sea. Cas had never seen the sea before, least of all with his human eyes. He had always been one for wide, open parks that were full of life, yet so serene you almost felt alone and lost in its expanse. And Dean? Well, Dean had always been too busy. There had always been a monster to hunt, or an apocalypse to prevent, or some other big bad to put an end to before they sent the world spiralling into ruin. So the two of them hustled a few pool games and got enough cash together to rent out a tiny shack on the seafront. The wood was dried out from the constant barrage of salt, and it was in desperate need of repainting, but for the two of them, it was perfect.

It was quiet and enclosed and the perfect getaway for the two tired mortals. They spent their days talking and kissing and drinking and watching corny TV shows from back in the 90s that Dean could barely remember. They took long, silent walks on the beach, the breeze tousling Cas’ hair as they walked and Dean couldn’t help the faint smile that tugged at his lips at the sight of it because it made Cas look that much more adorable.

But the smile never made it past more than a thought, because fuck, Dean hadn’t smiled in so long, he wasn’t sure he knew how to anymore.

And Cas? Cas was much the same, but really, when had he ever smiled? Smiling was far from something angels did frequently, but he was human now – a fact he didn’t have to remind himself of. He felt… small, in the grand scheme of things. He could feel himself growing older with each day that passed, and he wondered if Dean felt the same. If that was one of the perks or the punishments of being human. To feel your life slipping away with each second that dripped by like the spurts of water that seeped out of the leaking showerhead in his and Dean’s shack.

It was in late August that Dean had finally smiled again. It was small and it was brief, but it was there and Cas had seen it. And honestly, that was all it took for the former angel to smile. He had stopped what he was doing – checking the headlines in their days old paper – and all but rushed to the other man’s side, desperate to repeat whatever it was he had done to tempt another smile out of him. And it turned out, all it took was the three little words that had trickled past his lips almost absently; “I love you.”

After the summer was over, they were back to business. The shack at the beach was a distant memory for the both of them. All that mattered was ganking whatever creature they came across next. They were still together – how could they be anything but a couple after everything that had happened? – but Dean focused more on hunting than romantic encounters, and honestly, Cas grew to miss the months they had spent by the sea. And the more he missed it, the more he dwelled on it. So he made arrangements. He saved whatever money he could get his hands on, and before he knew it, the shack was already rented out for the next summer, ready for him to tempt Dean with its allure one more.

But fate always has a funny way of working things out.

Cas was gone by that winter. He had been out one night, stocking up on supplies because Dean had been too lazy or too tired to walk to the store just to get some bottled water and some painkillers. The store was barely a five minute walk from that month’s seedy motel, and Dean had been watching out of the window when he saw it. The car that smashed into Cas’ fragile human form at a sickening speed. And Dean had been out of the door and across the street in seconds, because the car hadn’t stopped and Cas was bleeding and broken and there was nothing he could do besides call 911 and  _hope_  that someone got there in time.

But they didn’t. They barely stood a chance. Because Cas was no longer indestructible, and there was  _so much_  blood and Dean had felt the life slip from his body before he heard the sirens in the distance, the former angel’s cooling body pressed clutched tightly to his chest, the blood still seeping from his body and staining Dean’s t-shirt.

And then Dean had found the note. It had been tucked away with the rest of Cas’ things, and no doubt the former angel was waiting for the right time to give it to him. Just three simple words, and a key tucked inside an envelope.  _I love you_.

So Dean had gone to the shack –  _their_  shack – and at first he had cried. He had spent days curled up on the bed he had shared with his angel just a year before and the ache in his chest was unbearable. He had sobbed. He had wailed. He had cried himself to sleep more times than he could remember, only to be awoken by the memory of Cas bleeding out in the road. He had drunken himself stupid one night – the night Cas had told him he loved him – and stumbled into the ocean, all but begging for the waves to wash over him and drag him out to sea because he just wanted it to be  _over_.

But he could never do that. Not to himself, or to Cas’ memory.

The first summer without Cas was hard, and each summer only got worse.


End file.
